Bibliofile

IT must've been quite a weekend read. Hari Kunzru submitted the first draft of his book on a Friday. By Monday morning his phone was ringing. The book was sold to publishers in Britain and the US for $1.8 million. Kunzru, whose father's from Kashmir and mother English, grew up in Essex, which is to London what Haryana is to Delhi. The story of The Impressionist resembles his own: a young man of mixed parentage dealing with different worlds. He's described the book as "Midnight's Children meets Tom Jones"; his agent calls it "accessible, funny and a great story". And yes, Hollywood is interested.

Talking of nri achievements, here's another. Nayana Spencer, all of 18, wins the Guardian Award for Poetry. We don't know how exactly her debut collection is influenced by Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, but her Grass of Leaves impressed poet laureate Ted Hughes enough to call her "one of the most original and perceptive voices in poetry today."